There is a trend in marketing that might surprise you. [convertkit form=5018200]

It’s taking the internet by storm, growing mom-and-pop online shops and big brands to new heights.

But the power of this marketing channel doesn’t come from digital ads or a search engine. It’s coming from seemingly everyday people like you and I. These people are influencers. And some of these influencers have more devoted fans than popular movies or TV shows.

How to Connect with Noteworthy Influencers, Without Breaking a Sweat

Alright. You’ve found the influencers you want to reach out to. You’ve qualified each influencer to make sure they’re a match. Perhaps you are starting to feel a little nervous… like asking a girl to prom.

You could reach out to her on social media. But I would recommend using email for these three reasons:

Many influencers want requests in their inbox. This is simple. When an influencer asks for business requests sent to her inbox, do so. The polite thing to do is not barrage her with tweets or DMs on Instagram. Craft an effective email and send the pitch to her inbox.

An inbox is more personal. When an influencer is on social media, there are distractions demanding her attention. She has 35 comments, 172 notifications, 12 lunatic fans, on top of what she needs to get done to keep her fans happy. In the inbox, you are only competing against a few other businesses.

Tracking and automation. There are many tools to help you track, follow up, and automate your responses on email (I use MailShake). This helps you to increase response rates by setting it up once.

Another option to email outreach is to use influencer marketing platforms.

You will find that blogging influencers are usually not listed on these platforms. So for bloggers, again, it’s often best to connect with her by email.

For social media influencers, some platforms allow you to buy a shout-out like you buy a product on Amazon. This requires no outreach. But keep in mind that for larger contracts, you may want to connect with an influencer before buying her services.

Other platforms use a private message system. In a sense, this acts like an email. So whether you use an email or send a private message, here are seven outreach best practices to follow.

We’ve sent over 50,000 outreach emails over the last 9 months for link building and PR purposes.

A lot of people will disagree with me, but outreach is a numbers game, plain and simple. Even if you have the right person, with the right pitch, people are busy and email is annoying – there’s still an element of chance.

If I had ONE tip to increase your positive responses, it helps to find the right people. However, finding the right people costs a lot of resources and time.

If you do not qualify influencers to work with, you will waste your time answering irrelevant emails. You will also waste your budget on influencers who do not influence potential customers. And you can damage your brand and reputation working with the wrong influencer.

If you try to work with the wrong influencer, you deserve to get slapped (Source).

Do yourself a favor. Do the research, because you will get a higher return on your investment.

Outreach Tip #2: Tantalize With An Appealing Subject Line.

You aren’t going to get responses if no one even opens up your email. My best subject line is a word smash of our company’s name and the other person’s name. It usually ends up being quite funny and always gets opened!

Others like John Rampton of Due find subject lines do best when they “address the key problem my audience is having.”

Sean Bestor, Head of Content at Sumo, loves using questions in his subject lines. As he puts it, asking questions are “like catnip for opens.” In his article on cold emails, Sean gives this example:

You can see the difference when I take subject lines we’ve received (that we didn’t open):

FW: Checking in
One minute demo
Sumo – Business Opportunity
Your site

And turn them into questions:

Everything ok?
Want to see what I can do in a minute?
Do you think this is a good idea?
Did you know this was on your site?

You’re INSTANTLY more curious with the second set of subject lines.

Once the influencer has opened your email, now it’s time to woo her with your email. To start off…

Outreach Tip #3: Keep It Short, Silly.

Don’t write more than 100 words. If it’s longer than 100 words, you need to rewrite your email.

Why is it worth taking the time to shorten your emails? Simple.

Shorter emails reduce the chances of the influencer getting distracted.

Everyone’s time is limited. Therefore, it’s important to state your purpose and give people the freedom to respond or ignore your message. Don’t be selfish by wasting your email recipient’s time [with lengthy emails].

Outreach Tip #4: Don’t Try to Sell Too Soon.

In the same way, an influencer won’t want to work with you from a random email sent to her inbox. The problem most marketers have is that they focus too much on their goals and not what’s in it for the influencer.

Adam Connell, the founder of Blogging Wizard, has some brilliant advice to help you get into the right mindset when doing outreach.

Would you respond positively to an email that boiled down to, “Hey person I don’t know. Give me your precious time to help me, and I’ll do absolutely nothing to help you in return.”

I wouldn’t. So here’s what you should do instead:

Focus your outreach email about what you’ll do to help the person you’re trying to connect with. What’s in it for them?

You could share their content, offer to fix a glitch on their site, or something else – it doesn’t have to be too substantial but it has to have meaning.

Let’s say you want to do a guest post for a blogger. One issue facing a lot of bloggers is accepting a guest post from someone who doesn’t share it or reply to comments.

One added benefit you can include in your outreach email is that you will share the post with your audience and reply to comments. It may seem basic but it could make the world of difference.

Instead of directly selling an influencer in the first email, you should…

Outreach Tip #5: End with a (Soft) Bang.

A statement feels demanding. But a question opens up a friendly conversation.

If you end every email with a question, you invite the influencer to respond with a clear call to action.

I sometimes use smileys and emoticons to keep my outreach emails as personal and casual as possible. I also like to wrap my email up with a PS, such as mentioning an article they wrote and say what I liked about it.

Cheesy? Perhaps. But the goal should be to make the email feel like it’s coming from one human to another.

Murray Newlands, the founder and CEO of Chatty People, takes a rather novel approach by taking conversations from their customer service messaging bot to personalize an email.

There are a lot of guides out there all about trying to butter people up and faking relationships with lines like “I’ve been following your blog for years!” or “I loved your last post (that I didn’t actually read)!”

Look, people aren’t stupid. Most people know how cold outreach works and they know that most outreach messages are just asking them for a favor. So, the most polite thing you can do is to just get to the point.

The key is to do outreach for pieces that are worth doing outreach for.

If you send me a message with something truly great, I’m much more likely to engage with it. If you waste my time with junk, then I won’t be happy.

Tyler’s advice goes back to tip #2, which shows you respect an influencer’s time.

Outreach Tip #7: Make It Easier to Say “Yes!”

Do you remember what I said earlier? Influencers are busy. So make it easy for her to say yes.

You can offer proof of past success. Or you can give her a done-for-you solution. If you show her why this opportunity is worth her time, she will be glad to work with you.

To improve your chances, it’s also important that you approach an influencer as an equal. Shanelle Mullin, content & growth marketer at ConversionXL explains:

Too many people approach cold outreach as though they’re begging the influencer to do them a favor.

Let’s say you work in PR and you want to connect with a journalist at Mashable to write about your client. Instead of writing a 1,000-word pitch, focus on how writing about your client will benefit the journalist or the publication.

If you have a hard time doing this, consider how journalists are evaluated by their bosses.

[On the other hand], don’t act like you’re doing them some huge favor. Just turn your pitch into an authentic win-win.

When I first reach out to influencers, brands and publications where I eventually want to get published, the conversation never starts by diving into what I want out of the deal.

I [also] make sure that I have a reason to reach out. Maybe that’s in the form of a feature on my blog, in a piece I wrote for my Forbes column or otherwise—the point is that I always provide upfront value in my email outreach.

Everything else can come in time if you establish a relationship based on providing value first.

One of the most common ways to show passion for a maker’s work is to share their content on social media. To find their content, I like to use a tool like Crate which will pull in the top blog posts shared on a specific domain or that a user has shared.

Outreach Tip #9: Follow Up Effectively.

A baby cries. The cat video beckons. People forget. Life happens, so make sure to politely follow up after a few days.

There are many ways to do follow up emails effectively (and I will touch on this more in the next article).

One reason why people don’t do follow up is that they think their email will hit the spam folder.

The truth is, the odds that your email gets flagged as spam is the same for the first email as the 5th. Manuel Medina, CEO of Outreach.io explains in this short video:

These are the results they found looking at the data of millions of sales emails. If an increase of well-crafted follow-up sales emails doesn’t increase the number of messages that hit the spam folder, then neither should outreach emails.

Before we dive into what you should write in your email, it will be helpful to look at what you should not do. That way, you can catch yourself before sending a poorly written email.

Consider this email:

Subject: Business opportunity for you

Hi Samantha,

My name is Frank with Acme Co. and we offer recovery supplement drinks.

This past year we worked with many CrossFit bloggers, resulting in $2,100 for reviewing our product, RunnersAide.

If you’re interested in working with us, let’s set up a quick call. I would love the opportunity to work with you.

All the best,

Frank

I would give this email a C+.

There are some influencers who would respond to this email because the email did not violate all nine rules.

Frank kept the email under 100 words. He provided some context by mentioning Acme works with CrossFit bloggers. And he also gave some social proof, stating he has worked with many other bloggers and that they earned an average of $2,100.

Which means there’s run for improvement. Let’s look at how Frank should write his email, following my seven outreach tips:

Subject: can I give you $2,100 Samantha? 🙂

Hi Samantha,

I came across your article on being a peace with your training.

I loved it! I constantly obsess over my training results. I’m excited to try out your techniques next time I hit the gym!

My team at Acme Co. has worked with many CrossFit bloggers like you who have reviewed our signature drink, RunnersAide.

The typical influencer made $2,100 for their review. We can provide you with pictures, talking points, and a free case for you to try.

Would you be interested in having me send you more information about our influencer program?

All the best,

Frank

Doesn’t this email sound more persuasive than the first email? It hits eight of the nine points.

Frank makes the subject line appealing

It’s short.

Frank personalizes the email compliments Samantha in a genuine way.

He also makes a connection between what she is doing and his product showing he’s done his research

The email makes it easy for Samantha to say yes. Frank states the opportunity to earn $2,100 and what he will provide to help her succeed.

Frank doesn’t forcefully sell her on the idea.

And the email ends with a question.

And if Frank follows up if Samantha doesn’t respond, he’s nailed it.

Perhaps Frank could deliver value to Samantha before sending this email. You may find this necessary when working with celebrity influencers. But you could send this email as-is and still get a high response rate.

If you would like some more guidance, here are three more email templates to try:

Email Use: Product Launch Email

Subject: Quick question FIRSTNAME…

Hey FIRSTNAME,

I saw you promote A SIMILAR PRODUCT and thought of you for something I’m about to launch.

NEXT WEEK, we are launching OUR PRODUCT. It’s like SIMILAR PRODUCT but focuses on SOMETHING DIFFERENT.

We’ve worked with Mary The Paleo Chef, Irena Macri, and many other paleo bloggers like you. We can provide you a buy-one-get-one-free code, recipes to use, and a box of our PRODUCT for you to enjoy.

Any interest in having me send you more info about our product launch?

Cheers,

Jason

***

Email Use: Evergreen Product

Subject: Quick question FIRSTNAME…

Hey FIRSTNAME,

I recently came across your video NAME/LINK. Great video. I can tell you are passionate about SOMETHING YOU ENJOYED!

My team at COMPANY has been working with other influencers like you, who’ve made an average of $2,100. We can provide you a 25% off code, recipes to use, and a box of our PRODUCT for you to enjoy.

You’ll get 20% of all sales made, paid out in 30 days (or three days if you send an email to your list).

Would you be interested in having me send OUR PRODUCT to review for your audience, FIRSTNAME?

Cheers,
Jason

***

Email Use: Follow-up Email

Hey FIRSTNAME,

I’m sure you’ve got a bit on your plate, so I to follow up to see if you were interested in doing a video review.

Most paleo influencers we’ve worked with make $2,100 per promotion.

Would that be of interest to you FIRSTNAME?

Cheers,
Jason

Final Thoughts

If I had to boil everything I knew about effective influencer outreach into a simple formula, it would be this:

Research + Relevance + Reward = Response

Research: Like a marathon, if you want to finish well, you need to prepare. To prepare for email outreach, you need to do your research.

Relevance: If an offer is not something that interests an influencer, it will be ignored.

Researching relevance requires you to find out if they have a relevant audience. It also requires you to make sure you have relevant values and goals. Essentially, you are looking for a product/influencer fit.

Then let influencers know about that fit by explaining why they should work with you in your email.

Reward: Influencers want to work with you. But again, she’s busy. Why should she work with you, rather than the 12 other companies that pitched her this week?

Reward her by making it faster, better, or more profitable to work with you. Go beyond paying more money and reward her with what she desires.

By doing good research, knowing the types of influencers, and what rewards best motivate her will lead to a higher response rate. A higher response rate leads to more revenue for your business.

And if the numbers work for your business, keep using this recipe as you scale up.

With Tweeple Search, you can:
-Find target audience or influencers in any domain sorted by follower count.
-Analyze your competitor’s Twitter followers to understand their marketing patterns.
-Compare different Twitter accounts to see what they have in common and how they differ.
-Find powerful Twitter influencers based on keywords in popular content they share.

PS:Tweeple Search got featured on Product Hunt and finished #1 with over 900 upvotes.

One question, in term of ‘research’, should I pay attention on influencer’s character, just like what their hobbies, or just focus on their work?
I’m new on this thing, so I think give a ‘noob question’ is the only thing I have to do to learn. hehe

Let me give you a better way to think about the “Outreach” thing: based on my experience working with (especially IG) Influencers, “outreach” is the wrong term to use. This can be misinterpreted to mean you want them to work for you in exchange for free product. They are generally very busy (that’s how they have become influential), and are more likely to appreciate a straightforward, business-like offer. That doesn’t mean you should approach just any influencer — do your homework to make sure their followers will like your brand. And once you confirm that, tell them what you’ve found and ask how much they charge (and I usually recommend to pay them bonus if the job is done well).
Good luck!👍